Album Review: Cannibal Corpse – Violence Unimagined (Metal Blade Records)

Violence Unimagined. The title tells you everything you need to know about Cannibal Corpse’s fifteenth hellish opus. It will be unleashed upon the world on April 16th 2021 via Metal Blade Records.

They’re back!!!

Beloved and feared in equal measures, Cannibal Corpse aren’t just a name synonymous with death metal. They’re THE name synonymous with death metal. No nonsense, unflinching and unchanging, Cannibal Corpse have been tearing through the fleshy parts of humanity for over 30 years. It’s why even if you don’t love them with feverish intent, you at least respect the hell out of them.

Cannibal Corpse make only one promise when it comes to their music and that is the promise of devastation and chaos. Is it a promise they’re able to keep on this, their 15th studio album?

Unquestionably. In fact, there’s a strong argument that Cannibal Corpse haven’t sounded this sickeningly intense in some time. It’s as though they’re surveyed the scene, noticed the younger pretenders to the death metal crown and set about showing them how it is done.

Showing them how speed and savagery can go together without having to compromise on the quality of the production. How head-crushing heaviness doesn’t mean you have to compromise on the riffs and solos or rely on breakdowns. How to make a record sound caked in bloody filth without forcing the gore to the forefront.

It’s a forensic approach by a band so well versed in this that it’s laughable to expect anything but another slab of brutality from them. It’s no slur to point at Cannibal Corpse and know exactly what you’re getting. This unbending approach to extreme metal has made them the giants they are today.

Pick your poison. Violence Unimagined is 11 tracks of extreme ferocity where the tempo is red-hot most of the time. The times it does cool, is only for some meaty head-banging notes to rise up. Cannibal Corpse are playing out of their skin here. The guitars are like buzz-saws at times, like blunt hammers at others. The bass is thick like coagulated blood and the drums have all the force of a speeding truck being rammed into a school bus. Like we said earlier… devastation and chaos.

… and of course, the vocals. Corpsegrinder spitting blood, mucus, teeth, chunks of flesh and whatever else comes up as he spits guttural barbs like nobody else can. All these years later and it’s unblemished and just as devastating as it was back in 1995.

The references to the past isn’t to suggest this is the Cannibal Corpse of the early days. It would be silly to expect that. What puts the mind on that track though is just how explosive an album this is. Cannibal Corpse turning back the clock to unleash something that would have stood up alongside their classics if released back then.

It has been released now though and extreme metal continues to push the boundaries. There’s no question at all that Cannibal Corpse fit in modern times. They certainly don’t have a point to prove but they’ve made one none through less. This is the true sound of extreme and this is the return of the kings.

Cannibal Corpse – Violence Unimagined Full Track Listing:

1. Murderous Rampage
2. Necrogenic Resurrection
3. Inhumane Harvest
4. Condemnation Contagion
5. Surround, Kill, Devour
6. Ritual Annihilation
7. Follow the Blood
8. Bound and Burned
9. Slowly Sawn
10. Overtorture
11. Cerements of the Flayed

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